RFID Driver's Licenses Debated

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RFID Driver's Licenses Debated

Some federal and state government officials want to make state driver's licenses harder to counterfeit or steal, by adding computer chips that emit a radio signal bearing a license holder's unique, personal information.

In Virginia, where several of the 9/11 hijackers obtained driver's licenses, state legislators Wednesday will hear testimony about how radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags may prevent identity fraud and help thwart terrorists using falsified documents to move about the country.

Privacy advocates will argue that the radio tags will also make it easy for the government to spy on its citizens and exacerbate identity theft, one of the problems the technology is meant to relieve.

Virginia is among the first states to explore the idea of creating a smart driver's license, which may eventually use any combination of RFID tags and biometric data, such as fingerprints or retinal scans.

"Nine of the 19 9/11 terrorists obtained their licenses illegally in Virginia, and that was quite an embarrassment," said Virginia General Assembly delegate Kathy Byron, chairwoman of a subcommittee looking into the use of so-called smart driver's licenses, which may include RFID technology.

The biometric data would make it harder for an individual to use a stolen or forged driver's license for identification. The RFID tags would make the licenses a "contact-less" technology, verifying IDs more efficiently, and making lines at security checkpoints move quicker.

Because information on RFID tags can be picked up from many feet away, licenses would not have to be put directly into a reader device. If there was any suspicion that a person was not who he claimed to be, ID checkers could take him aside for fingerprinting or a retinal scan.

States need to adopt technologies that can ensure a driver's license holder is who he says he is, said Byron.

Federal legislators may also require states to comply with uniform "smart card" standards, making state driver's licenses into national identification cards that could be read at any location throughout the country. The RFID chips on driver's licenses would at a minimum transmit all of the information on the front of a driver's license. They may also eventually transmit fingerprint and other uniquely identifiable information to reader devices.

But federal mandates for adding RFID chips to driver's licenses would create an impossible burden for states, which will have to shoulder the costs of generating new licenses, and installing reader devices in their motor vehicle offices, said a states' rights advocate.

"It could easily become yet another unfunded federal mandate, of which we already have $60 billion worth," said Cheye Calvo, director of the transportation committee at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

RFID tags incorporate computer chips, radio transponders and coiled antennae. The tags, many as small as a postage stamp, already pervade the day-to-day lives of millions of Americans, and are expected to eventually replace barcode labels on retails goods.

Drivers with E-ZPass tags on their windshields can already cruise through many highway toll booths without stopping, thanks to RFID technology.

RFID tags, which respond to signals sent out by special reader devices, have in some tests demonstrated broadcast ranges up to 30 feet. Reader devices have proven to possess similar "sensing" ranges. This is what has some privacy advocaters worried, including one testifying tomorrow before the Virginia legislators.

"The biggest problem is that these tags are remotely readable," said Christopher Calabrese, council for the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Program.

RFID tags inside driver's licenses will make it easy for government agents with readers to sweep large areas and identify protestors participating in a march, for example. Privacy advocates also fear that crooks sitting on street corners could remotely gather personal information from individual's wallets, such as their birth dates and home addresses – the same information many bank employees use to verify account holders' identities.

Information from card readers could also be coupled with global positioning system data and relayed to satellites, helping the government form a comprehensive picture of the comings and goings of its citizens.

Driver's licenses with RFID tags may also become a tool that stalkers use to follow their victims, said Calabrese. "We're talking about a potential security nightmare."

But opponents of the use of RFID and other technologies in driver's licenses and state issued ID cards are conflating RFID's technological potential with its potential for abuse by government authorities, said Robert D. Atkinson, vice president at the Progressive Policy Institute.

"Putting a chip or biometric data on a driver's license doesn't change one iota the rules under which that information can be used," said Atkinson.

The Virginia legislators may balk at the use of RFID in driver's licenses, however, unless they can be proven to be immune from use by spies and identity thieves.

"I can't see us using RFID until we're comfortable we can without encroaching on individual privacy, and ensure it won't be used as a Big Brother technology by the government," said Joe May, chairman of the Virginia General Assembly's House Science and Technology Committee.